Guinea-Bissau

New
York, November 1, 2012--The Committee to Protect Journalists condemns Monday's
decision by authorities in Guinea-Bissau to expel Portuguese journalist
Fernando Teixeira Gomes from the country in connection with his critical
coverage of the transitional government.

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Police arrested Barbosa, a reporter for the private radio station Bombolom FM in the southwestern town of Bolama, after he broadcast a report accusing a local police officer of violence against a woman, according to the pan-African news agency Panapress and a local source.

Police entered the studios of Radio Kasumai, a community radio station in the northern town of Saõ Domingos, and ordered employees to stop broadcasting. The police also threatened several journalists. According to local journalists, the threats stemmed from a recent program in which callers complained on-air that police were illegally extorting money from local residents.

Your Excellency, The Committee to Protect Journalists (CPJ) is alarmed by the government's closure of Radio Bombolom, Guinea-Bissau's main independent news broadcaster, in the latest attempt to silence critical voices ahead of general elections scheduled for April 20. On February 13, police shuttered Radio Bombolom's offices, forcing the broadcaster off...

For some delegates, just getting to the West African Journalists Association (WAJA) regional conference in Dakar, Senegal, was an impressive achievement. While his colleagues used more conventional modes of transportation, Sierra Leone Association of Journalists (SLAJ) president Frank Kposowa navigated his way out of the country by night in a hired motorized dugout canoe. The state of anarchy in Sierra Leone since the May 25, 1997, coup d'?état had rendered travel virtually impossible, and Kposowa's risky passage was just another example of the challenges facing courageous journalists who chose to remain in the country and risked losing their lives by practicing their profession.